about film

Analogue me. Film camera. A rusty old Leika. Manual film loading. A Kodak 100 Tmax, black and white. The heavy noise of the shutter instead of the silent digital click. 36 poses, 36 time boxes, 36 feelings reproduced on the film. No more, no less.

Oh, dear film photography. Your magnetism is trully familiar. Everybody understands your beauty, yet no one really sees it. Or is it vice versa?

To place your fingers on the rough, cold, edgy steel, from which the camera was made some 40 years ago rather than the smooth, curvy body of the digital canon. To feel the weight of the life inside the iron box, a weight literal yet metaphorical. To see the scratches through the ocular, scratches originating from the feelings imprinted on the body from previous owners.

Film photography. Where shaking is not something you compensate through changing the settings, but a part of the feeling. And noise isn't just another side effect from the high ISO, but an impression of the old camera body, craving to leave its soul on the image you are creating.

Where hurt is a constant. When you realise that sometimes your vision does not coincide with the one, built from the strong character of your analogue camera, unlike souless digital cameras who do exactly as they are told. When you understand that the film you have projected your inner soul on is long gone.

Film photography is an art. And art can't be tamed. It disturbes your sleep, ruins your life or makes it worthwhile. Or both at the same time. Be prepared.

Yours, Z